Comparison of outcome of conventional suture ligation versus ligasure vessel sealing in patients undergoing total thyroidectomy for multinodular goiter.

Objective: To compare the results of Ligasure versus conventional suture ligation for thyroidectomy for multinodular goiter in terms of mean operative time and post-operative drain output volume. Study Design: Comparative Prospective study. Setting: Department of General Surgery, Mayo Hospital Lahore. Period: 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2021. Material & Methods: After approval from the Institutional review board of King Edward medical university, a sample of 140 patients was obtained. Patients were divided into 2 groups, Group A and Group B. Group A patients underwent total thyroidectomy with Ligasure vessel sealing while Group B patients underwent total thyroidectomy with conventional suture ligation. Operative time and post-operative drain volume were measured and documented. The P-value of ≤ 0.05 was considered significant. Results: The average age of the patients was 36.04 ± 9.78 years with minimum and maximum ages being 18 & 61 years respectively. The mean surgery time was 137.80 ± 26.21 minutes in group A while in group B the mean surgery time of the patients was 164.91 ± 31.94 minutes (P-value= <0.001). The mean post-op drain volume in group A was 91.28 ± 7.82 ml, almost similar to group B patients i: e 70.28 ± 4.33 ml (P-value=0.14). Conclusion: Ligasure vessel sealing is significantly better than conventional suture ligation in terms of mean surgery duration but there is no difference in post-operative drain volume in both groups.